A Canadian becomes a new dad in Japan

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The past few days have been quite busy for Tomoe. We went for a long walk on Friday, she spent the day with her mom and grandparents on Father’s Day, and she went to a baby exercise class on Monday. So much activity stimulates her mind so much that she gets extremely restless at night. Basically, she’s been absolutely crazy. It’s been difficult to get her to sleep, and my wife is suffering from a lack of sleep on the days that she works.

She’s in the last week before she turns 5 months old. How’s she doing? First, she’s been spending a lot of time on her stomach, which helps her strengthen her arms, neck and back. She’s gaining very good control of her head and neck and hasn’t been wobbly for quite some time. She’s able to push herself up with her arms fully extended now. With all this strengthening and straightening, she’ll be sitting up on her own in no time.

Her “talking” is becoming more varied. She says “ba,” “ma,” and “pthpthpthpthpthpthp” now. She also responds to our voices very well. She smiles when we speak to her, and if she’s not looking at us, she’ll look when we call her.

One thing that we don’t have is a good routine. Every night seems different for bedtime. It really depends on how her day went. I’ve been able to get her to sleep tonight, though. Hopefully, she’ll stay asleep until morning.

Today, Tomoe is 4 months old. It’s hard to believe it’s been 4 months since she was born. So much has happened since then. She’s gone from a sleeping, pooping, peeing and eating machine with no personality to a little girl with a lot of personality.

Lately, she’s been getting quite good at pushing up with her arms, so she can hold her head up much more easily while on her stomach. This is very important for when she learns to crawl. She’s also almost rolling over. She gets about half way before flopping back down on her back.

She’s getting really good at tummy time.

She’s getting more and more interactive these days, as well. She looks at and follows everything. She’s tracking left, right, up and down with her eyes, so that’s great. She’s been manipulating things with her hands, though quite clumsily. She reaches for toys and holds them while looking at them. She has one toy that plays music that she especially loves. She smiles quite a bit for it.

On the topic of smiles, her laugh has finally become more like a laugh. When she laughed before, it wasn’t really a laughing sound, but now she has a much more natural laugh. One thing that makes her laugh is if I copy her laugh. She loves it.

Her eye colour has changed a lot now. 2 weeks ago, it was mostly blue with some hazel mixed in. Now, it’s mostly hazel, though some blue still shows through.

Lately, Tomoe’s been sleeping a lot. So, here are some sleeping pictures.

Sounds like a cheap horror movie, doesn’t it? But it isn’t. Tomoe’s been extremely active lately, and she’s been sticking her tongue out a lot. It’s normal, as she’s discovering how to use her body. Before, she was playing around with her hands and watching them. Now, it’s her tongue.

That’s not all that’s been developing recently. Tomoe’s becoming mobile! She nearly turned herself over this week, making it onto her side, but not quite onto her stomach. She’s also been pushing herself around with her feet while she’s on her back. We have a small sofa that unfolds into a mattress that she’s been lying on, but she’s nearly pushed herself onto the floor head first. So, we tried putting her on the floor, on a cork mat used to prevent damage to the floor from our trampoline. Well, she turned herself around by 90 degrees.

On her stomach for tummy time, she’s beginning to push up with her arms. She doesn’t quite get it, though. She can keep her head high despite not mastering the push-up. But that’s okay, as it’s expected to happen by 4 months old.

She’s getting good at sitting up with support, and enjoys it far more than lying down. She can take her own weight on her feet, as well. Of course, she can’t stand, but her legs are pretty strong now. She has a powerful kick!

She’s been extremely vocal, too. She often talks by herself, experimenting with different sounds. She’s done raspberry sounds, and can often say things like “ba,” “ma,” “buuu,” “mom,” “aaa-uuu,” and so on. It sounds cute, but there are times when she gets irritable and won’t stop complaining. It’s most likely discomfort from gas, as she isn’t hungry nor does she need a diaper change. She’s just noisy! All day, all the time. It’s easy to get frustrated, but we have to be patient.

Her sleeping habits are becoming more routine. She sleeps through the night quite often and has a couple naps during the day. But sometimes, she suddenly wakes up because she’s hungry. We need to break the habit of a nighttime feeding.

She’s finally becoming more interested in toys. She has one rattle-like toy that has bells in it that she will hold if given to her. She’ll look at it a lot, but not play with it.

It’s an exciting time for Tomoe’s development right now. So much is happening, and she’s changing so fast! I can’t believe she’s probably around 8 kg now. Coming soon is her 4 month checkup and immunizations.

Today, Tomoe is 100 days old. This is an important day in Japan, and a big meal is prepared for 100 day old babies to ensure that they will never have to go hungry in their entire lives. We had our big meal on Monday with the family, as I’d already posted about.

At this stage of a baby’s development, a lot is happening. Babies are very actively moving their arms and legs around. Tomoe does that a lot. She also kicks pretty hard now. Another thing she really enjoys is being held upright with her feet on the floor or on my wife or I. She pushes down so that she’s kind of standing. It makes her give a big smile. Babies are also supposed to start getting interested in toys, especially holding or hitting them. Tomoe will hold a toy and stare at it, but that’s about it.

Babies also like to touch things and feel them. Tomoe is always trying to grab onto something. It doesn’t matter what, she holds on tight. It gets slightly painful when she digs her fingernails into my hand or arm, too. When she does hold something, she always tries to move it to her mouth. This is also quite normal. She usually tries sucking on her bib or clothes. Another thing she loves to feel is being blown on. We just blow at her hair, and she makes a gasping sound and a very happy looking face.

Tomoe is incredibly alert. She’s always looking around at things, and when we’re walking around the apartment, she’ll follow us with her eyes. She’s also unbelievably vocal. She makes a lot of sounds. Although she doesn’t have a big laugh yet, which normally happens within the next couple of weeks, she does make a quick laugh sometimes.

We’ve been giving her a lot of tummy time, as well. This is helping her strengthen her neck, shoulders, back and arms. By the time she’s 4 months old, she should be able to hold herself up with her arms and also roll herself over. She’s almost done that once, only making it halfway.

As far as language development goes, we’ve been talking to her, showing her things and telling her what they are. She may not understand, but she’s learning how we speak, and will eventually try to mimic the sounds.

Finally, here are some pictures. Being her 100th day, we did find a couple of very lucky things. Scroll down to the last 2 pictures, and you’ll see.

There’s me holding Tomoe while she sucks on her thumb. She fell asleep shortly after that.

Sleeping on the sofa. She’s done a lot of that this week.

She tried to feed herself, but no control.

It was raining a bit today, and we managed to see this rainbow on Tomoe’s 100th day.